Charles Patrick Sunderland ("Pat / Charlie")

Pat Sunderland joined Movietone as a sound engineer on its launch in 1929. In 1934 he became chief sound engineer - ‘chief of sound’ - on British Movietone News, and remained in this post for over thirty years. Early in 1939 Sunderland was involved with Gerald Sanger [qv] and Tommy Scales [qv] in planning the evacuation of Movietone’s editorial staff to Denham in the event of a war. This was successfully carried out in September 1939, although after sixteen issues Sunderland and the other staff moved back to Soho Square. He remained chief sound engineer at Movietone throughout the war, and in April 1948 was credited on the team that produced ‘ROYAL SILVER WEDDING’ for British Movietone News No.986A. Sunderland was listed in the Movietone staff list for October 1951. He also supervised the re-recording and dubbing of the sound for ‘The Flight of the White Heron’ (1954), Movietone’s film of the Royal Tour of the Commonwealth. As Terry Gallacher [qv] recalled, ‘The Flight of the White Heron’ ‘was in stereo for the few cinemas that could show CinemaScope with stereophonic sound’: ‘The system used required that the 35mm print had sound tracks of magnetic stripe which were placed inside and outside of the perforations. One of these was larger than the others and carried two tracks giving a total of five tracks.' Sunderland appeared in the Movietone staff list for January 1964, and Peter Hampton [qv] remembered ‘Charlie Sunderland’ as the reel’s sound mixer. According to Pat Wyand [qv], Sunderland retired in February 1967, when Wyand himself became Movietone’s ‘chief of sound.'

Sources

G. Sanger ‘The Story of British Movietone News in the War Years,' c.1946, copy in BUFVC: J. Ballantyne (ed) ‘Researcher’s Guide to British Newsreels: Vol.II’ (1988), p.36: Reg Sutton’s typescript autobiography, copy in BUFVC: BUFVC, T. M. Gallacher, ‘Additional Notes,' October 1999.